Avars

And I think...

You know, well done, Avar.

Yeah, you got it right.

But how that red card came out of his pocket in that moment is beyond me.

Va'akhalta is avar, hove, or atid.

Sorry, or atid.

Which one? Va? Avar.

Great.

And it means, did you eat? Right? That makes sense.

Ooh, not at all.

West Tungid variety of the vast Central Asian steppes influenced by Turanid, developed in ancient times with the Hunnic, Avar, and Chassar expansions.

Not real.

These are straight up Kazakhs, yo.

Double siege.

Yeah, you had Avar forces swarming the European land side and Sassanid Prussian forces massed across the Bosphorus Strait.

Okay, so the defense of the city is left in the hands of Patriarch Sergius.

And to stand where he stood, you can go to the dense Ivansaray neighborhood of modern Istanbul today.

It's like they were drawing a magical chalk circle around the entire city, but at an imperial scale.

That's a fantastic analogy.

And the Avar forces found out what happens when you cross that circle.

What happened?